High-Level Project Summary
Project Sumer is a 2 part system that would allow us to create energy the most efficiently and cleanly. Part 1 of the system depends on a Darrieus wind turbine and Nas Battery.Initially, the NaS battery will be powering the rover, after its entry it would trigger the turbine which would come out of the rear of the rover and it would expand to a height and dia of 1 m. Inside the rover, it would be folded to a height and dia of 0.5 m. The darrieus type wind turbine would be able to handle speeds of 220 km/h. The turbine would be connected to the NaS battery which would transfer the energy to the rover. The 2nd part would be a type of generator that use the rotation of the wheels as its rotor.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
The Wind turbine would have a body made of Magnesium alloy coated with a layer of Chromium, which would allow it to be strong to not get blown and broken by the intense winds, and would be light. It would be folded inside the rover's back end to a height and width of 50 cm. It would be able to handle speeds of 220 Km/hour
and taking the average speed of 100 km/hr and efficiency of 40% would give us the energy of around 4988.640 w/hr.
The turbine would be connected to a sensor a CT Sensor to be exact, which would trigger a backup NaS battery in case the energy produced by the turbine drops to below 2000 w/hr for over 3 minutes, it would stop consuming power from the turbine and start using the backup battery which would have been charged form Earth. We chose the Darrieus type wind turbine because we needed something that could be folded and made compact to take as less space in the rover as possible and also be able to handle the immense high-speed winds of Venus.
The Backup battery would be connected to a RAS (Regenerative Acceleration System), inspired by the RBS system. It would use the rotation of the wheels as the rotor and the Axle would have a Stator, which converts the rotation of the wheels into electrical energy. This energy would be directed back to the Backup battery which would be powering the rover in case of a partial failure.
This RAS system would allow the battery to be recharged, as small as it may be, but this will allow it to work for around 50 days.
Even after the windmill would be not functioning, the sensor will continue to search for a steady flow of more than 2600 W/hr from the windmill for over 4 minutes. If this is found, it would restart using its energy consumption from the windmill and the Backup energy would return to standby until the windmill stops producing more energy.
The Dimension of the Windmill would be dia 1m and height 1m, and while folded it would be 50 cam dia and 50 cm Height. and will weigh around 1.24 Kg
The dimension of the Battery would be Dia:- 1.69 Meters and Height:- 0.64 Meters, and the weight would be around 3 Kg (Per cell).
The dimensions of the Braking system would be around Length:- 0.43 meters (Including the wheel) and width:- 0.5 meters and height of 0.1 meters. The weight would be around 0.7 Kg (Per wheel)
Our system would allow for the energy-producing system to keep working even after, partial failure, it would be using the ISRU which would be the wind, and also be recharged. The battery and the folded windmill would all require an enclosure made of Beryllium Copper with aerogel on the inside to make it insulated and coated with oxidized aluminum to make it corrosion resistant, and lightweight.
Space Agency Data
Lithium Sulfur Battery overview, a major helper(This resource helped us give an understanding of what we really needed to do and how it was done using the Lithium-Sulfur Battery. It helped us get a better understanding of the challenge and make something really viable and working)
Conditions of Venus and the climate (This resource helped us figure out the conditions on Venus and how we could tackle them and what could be done)
NaS battery (This page was the most helpful in everything related to the NaS battery)
Hackathon Journey
Our Space Apps experience was chaotic, but in a good way. We tried to finish a complete power source and overcomplicated the solution. We ruled out a lot of ideas for not being realistic and only figured out in the last half day that we were better to stick with one solution and to identify any challenges for future mitigation rather than to keep switching designs. The time pressure was significant and we lost all hope. With a multinational team, we had to wait to regroup. It was in that moment that the team was able to rally by working together to regain hope ( this is our "HOPE" in the name of our project). We initially chose this challenge because we didn't know how hard it would be and because we thought that this would be a fine challenge and be the best way to learn, but when things became difficult, instead of giving up, we embraced the challenge and decided to try as hard as possible with the time we had left. We learned a lot about time and team management, which is sure to come in handy in the future. We also learned important lessons about underestimation and hope, and finally, we learned a lot about a variety of different power sources. Our team resolved challenges and setbacks by pushing through them no matter what, even in a lack of hope. We would like to thank NASA and all the wonderful people who set up this hackathon, and the go team who helped us along the way, but first and foremost we would like to thank each other for sticking through until the end and giving us HOPE.
Also one of the members left the team at the end of the challenge with just 30 minutes left, which was very hard for us to cope up with.
References
Darrieus Wind Turbine(This resource was also immensely helpful in making sure that the type of wind turbine we used was perfect and could be used to it's fullest)
Wind Turbine Energy Generator Calculator(This resource helped us figure out the energy that would be created by the wind turbine and how much we need to tweak the design)
Multiphysics Modelling of NaS battery
Dimensions, weight, and energy generated count for the NaS
The research paper of NaS Battery (This resource was immensely helpful and helped us choose the perfect battery for our system
SmartDraw (This website helped us build our symbolic diagram)
Google (We used google and google presentation to make our presentation and search for things
Microsoft Edge (To search and find out things)
Tags
#windturbine #SodiumSulfurBattery #RAS #effecient energy